A rare cliché
Long lost friends finding eachother through social media is no longer news. The story you are about to read is partly that kind of a cliché, and partly not. An instance that I would not quite expect to experiece during an Internations dinner.
A few weeks back I have come across a highschool friend of mine from the Austrian College in Istanbul, here on Internations. He had become an actor and nothing much changed in his looks except for his frontal ''haircut''. Being an anti-social-media person who doesn't have any 'accounts' I can still feel quite surprised and excited when that sort of thing happens. We first met 33 years ago and technically we should have last seen eachother at our graduation, Protected content after that. That roughly makes a 25-years-split. We said our ''Wow!''s and ''Hello''s and promised each other to make arrangements to meet. Very conveniently, I saw him sign up to a dining activity that I organized very close to our old school in an area where we all hung out after, and occasionally even during... school. Perfect setting to reunite!
On the rainy evening of 12th of October, I make it to the venue and I see him show up as guests start pouring in. We hug, speaking and laughing a bit loudly. I introduce him to the group telling them about our past and how we met again which does not create quite a shockwave among the audience, as expected in the age of social media.
But later something curious happens. In the enjoyable course of the evening with quite a fun bunch around the table I feel a hand tapping on my shoulder following which I see Serhan's smiling face calling me over: ''Come on, old chap. Let's have an emotional moment.'' A few theories as to what this may be about, including his unadmitted love for me during the school years, quickly cross my mind as I follow his tipsy steps to the corner he leads me to. I return the smile and start listening.
''Your father'' he says, ''is one of the reasons I became an actor. I remember the day of his funeral. I remember that coffin right in the middle of that big opera stage and in all my youth I started thinking that this is what you get for being an artist. And that has been one of the many things that pushed me into arts and acting. I just had to tell you this and get it out of me…'' and an 'interlude' of a few long seconds sets on during which I go speechless, less because of his deep sensitivity and incredible memory, and a lot more because of the picture he brought back into my mind that I had long forgotten among other things I may have put behind during that time. After he passed away my father, a state opera singer, was indeed placed on the 'Great Stage' of the now-demolished-but-never-to-be-deconstructed Atatürk Cultural Center (state opera building), as a last official service. And our school had allowed a few of my class mates to go with me to keep me company during the funeral. Serhan was among them… Let me give you a few seconds…
The rest of the conversation follows pretty much in the forseeable sentimentality such a moment naturally calls for. And all the hugging after that might actually have inspired my quick theory of unadmitted love in the minds of some other guests as well. Nonetheless, if you can pardon the oscar-winner-lingo, I would like to thank Serhan for opening a window in my memory and Internations for conducing to it.
